


i hold my soul with shaking hands

by arabellagaleotti



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drugs, Five Stages of Grief, Gen, Grief/Mourning, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, James "Rhodey" Rhodes is a Good Bro, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Mental Institutions, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is a Mess, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Recreational Drug Use, Uncle James "Rhodey" Rhodes, tony stark is dead
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:54:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21891718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arabellagaleotti/pseuds/arabellagaleotti
Summary: Peter's a mess, grieving over Tony Stark, taking drugs. Luckily, Rhodey is here to help.
Relationships: Peter Parker & James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 11
Kudos: 91





	1. denial

Peter’s a genius. Peter is at MIT, and...and... He's is dead, and nothing is right in the world.

_Nothing._

He doesn't really know what to do, but he hates being the person he is. The nerdy, loser, depressed Peter Parker. So, he becomes someone different. He goes to parties and pretends he feels the same as every other frat bro there, wasted on cheap beer and pulled up to the ceiling lights as they get higher and higher, hearts pounding on the bass that shakes the walls of their tiny world. 

But really, he’s not, he can't get drunk, his soul doesn't shiver with the beat because he's half sure he doesn't have one anymore. Not since the bite. 

Peter wonders what it really did to him, sure, it helped him lose his glasses and gave him abs, but what it _really_ do to him? It took his whole, human DNA and twisted it, carved it into something different and against the force of nature. Mutated it into something out of Chernobyl or a bad 70’s sci-fi movie. 

Ever since the final battle, he hasn't put on the suit. He tried, but it reminded him too much of — — —. Of the workshop. The smell of WD-40 and picking machine grease off pizza. 

\--

  
  


If he pretends that — — — isn’t dead, that — — — never existed, then he’s fine, isn't he? It’s all good. He’s hot no reason to be sad, so he isn't. If his brain forgets the name as soon as anyone says it, he forgets he ever knew it at all, trght?

\-- 

“Rhodey,” he says, blinks. Rhodey smiles, and doesn't say anything about the weed that he can so clearly smell. “Come in.”

“Sorry for the low notice, kid,” he apologises, and squeezes into his tiny dorm. A man like Rhodey feels too big for it, really. Like he should be bursting out of the walls any minute. “Just passin’ through. Wanted to see you.”

“Uhuh,” Peter says, and shuts the door behind him. He opens the window and sits on the bed, stares at Rhodey a minute. He's probably dissociating. He should probably say something. 

Rhodey chuckles, sits himself down on the chair at the desk, “this brings me right back, you know I went to MIT too, right?”

Peter just nods. He nearly opens her mouth to say something more, like _that's where you and ——— meet._ But, he's not that stupid. 

“Yeah. He, uh, he reminded me of you, when he was still here.” Peter winces. Rhodey sighs. “Sorry, kid. I uh, I know you don't like to talk about it.”

“Yeah,” Peter mumbles, “I don't like to talk about it.”

“But, um, I hear you’re doing well, so that's good—”

“Pepper sent you,” Peter cuts him off. She doesn't even care, for once, not even at the look on Rhodey’s face. 

‘What?”

“You weren't passing through, Pepper sent you,” he shrugs. “She worries about me.”

“Yeah, of course she does, kid. — — — was your...mentor. He meant a lot to you.”

Peter almost laughs. “He wasn't my mentor.”

Rhodey raises his eyebrows, as if what he's about to say is the most important thing he will ever here. “Yeah, he was. He loved you, kid, just as much as Morgan.”

“Then why did he leave?” Peter says, and he nearly cries. The pot is wearing off, it seems. 

“— — — didn't leave, he died. And he saved the fucking world. That's the most --- he could do. And he did it."

Peter just mumbles something incoherent. 

“You were...you _are_ both so, so, fucking smart. So fucking smart. I couldn’t believe it, most days, the things — — — would dream up. Incredible. You're both funny, and he was eager, like you, and just wanted some fucking friends. Human connection.”

“I have friends,” Peter reptiles numbly, on autopilot.

Rhodey snorts. “Where?” There’s silence, the bed creaks, Rhodey leans forward “you grieve the same too, Peter. Tony shut people out. You need to let them back in.”

Peter doesn't answer, just turns his head so he doesn't have to look

“Right, Rhodey says. “I’ll go, then.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Bye.”

He doesn't get up to show him out, just listens to him open the door and slip out into the corridor. The walls shrink back in. Peter can breathe. He doesn't really want to. 


	2. anger

He’s angry, he's so fucking angry. His blood smokes inside his veins and his bones crack like glow sticks so he's lit up from the inside, and all that energy, it’s gotta come out somehow.

So, he fucks shit up. He goes to a houseparty, spends an hour or so pretending to enjoy the sweaty mess of bodies and B.O that everyone else is, then slips upstairs. He’s trying to find an empty room when he just can't fucking take it anymore. 

He kicks the first thing he sees. It sends a hole as big a football into the cabinet. That's the final, snapping string, and then he’s at it, destroying everything, ripping it apart like an animal. Is that this new Peter? Is that what the spider turned him into?

“Nice,” a voice interrupts him. Peter freezes and looks up, suddenly scared. He feels like a child again caught with his hand in the cookie jar. 

It’s just a girl, in a short dress, leaning against the doorframe. 

“I, uh—”

“I don’t care,” she says, and walks towards him, “about any shitty excuse you're gonna come up with. Rage is rage. That's okay.”

“Is this — your house?”

She snorts. “fuck no.”

He swallows. She looks at him.“I’m Jane. Nice to meet you.”

“Peter Parker, he says back, and shakes her hand, like this is something more professional than it is. 

\--

Jame is fun, very fun. She’s smart and dangerous and lives like it's her last day on earth.

Peter experiences 4ams like never before, at all-night burger places, dancing on the dew-wet football field, eyes burning as much as the sun coming up the horizon, high on acid that, if he's honest, does not have as much of an effect on him as he pretends. Peter likes to pretend.

They get into trouble a lot. Disturbing lectures, labs, doing experiments they probably shouldn't be doing while drunk. But, Peter doesn't really care anymore. He feels like he belongs, with her.

They kiss, messily, hot and wanting, not like Peter ever imagined his first girlfriend’s kisses would be like. They fuck on the second night they know each other, and it feels wasteful. It also feels free. 

After, she rolls over and goes to sleep, he sits up and stares at the wall. 

Sometimes he thinks that he could be gone, and Jane wouldn't even notice, not for a second. But that's just the way she works, she flies around on her own volition, doesn't care about anyone or anything except the next night and fun.

\--

They’re at a club, once again, and the feeling of Peter's been thinking about recently come bubbling up, and he can't even stop himself.

“So, I was thinking a round of drinks, then we go mooch off those rich fucks in the corner,” she nods her head where a group of well dressed people are sitting in the VIP, four bottles of open champagne in front of them. 

“Jane,” he says, loudly. 

She turns back to him, eyebrow raised in question. “What? You've never had a problem with that stuff before.”

“It’s not that,” he tells her, and takes a deep breath, “this isn't working for me.” There’s a moment before she comprehended what he’s said. 

Then, she does and it all snapped into place. “What? I'm the one who showed you all this! This entire world, and you wouldn't have experienced anything if not for me." It's true. She took a boy having a bit of a mental breakdown and made him laugh. 

He shrugs. “Yeah, but I'm going through something, and this is unhealthy for me.” Oh god, hear how grown-up he sounds? 

She shakes her head. “Okay, whatever. See you later, Parker.”

“Yeah, Jane. That was fun.” 

She turns back to him, and smiles, a little, like real people do, and says. “It was, Peter. Good luck with...everything.”

And then she’s gone, into the crowd. Jane’s a special type of person, he’ll never meet anyone like her ever again. And he was right, she doesn't care whether he’s there or not, there be a Peter Parker after him, and one after that, and one after that. 


	3. bargaining/depression

"Do you use drugs?" Rhodey finally asks one day on one of his numerous visits. Peter has a feeling he's been meaning to ask for a while. 

Peter looks up slowly. "Yeah," he answers, like he's dumb. Why does he even have to ask?

Rhodey swallows, like it surprises him. . “What do you use?”

He shrugs. “Anything. I do anything.” It's honest. He hasn't been honest in a while.

He started small, a few puffs of weed to see if it worked with his enhanced body. Well, that's what he told himself. It doesn't quite work how he imagines it happen for others, strange and distorted; like he is viewing the world through water, like he is lying at the bottom of a swimming pool and looking up towards the dappled light. From there, it was easy. Snowball. 

“Why?”

He takes a while to answer, this time. Well, to answer honestly. At the time, he brushes it off with some comments like, “why does anyone?” and keeps it up until Rhodey leaves again.

But really, he thinks about it. 

He wishes he had done all the things he was scared of. Like hug him, or say what he really meant, or spend more time _actually_ interning, not just as Spider-Man. 

Maybe then he would still be here. Maybe it would change just the slightest thing, and then he would still be here. The butterfly effect. 

Maybe it’s his fault he’s dead. 

— 

He’s in class when it happens, the professor — some young dude who honestly doesn't give a fuck — makes a joke, about Tony Stark and, y’know, him being dead.

Everyone laughs, but Peter just sucks in a breath. That’s it. It’s sunk right in now, into his bones. His DNA. It’s there forever now, and maybe in a thousand years whatever survives the earth will dig up his corpse and see it there.

_TONY STARK IS DEAD._

Along a femur, or the ribs carrying a word each, or his skull, right across the temple, like a brand. 

_—_

And then there's the darkness, the one that lives in the night, in the shadow. It snarls in the corner of rooms and curls down from the blackness between the stars. It reaches out and tries to take him. To a place he might not come back from. 

He lies in bed and stares at the walls, at his phone, anything but the creeping blackness around the corner of a room. 

At parties, the darkness is pushed away by the lights and music and people filling every space, until the lights stutter with the beat and for one second, two, the lights go out and the darkness leaps out at him. It's gone by the time the lights go back on, but Peter remembers. 

— 

He goes home, and fills the bathtub scalding-hot, strips, and eased himself into it. There's a moment, in the clear, where he doesn't feel anything at all. But then he does. He bends over, draws his knees to his chest, and sobs. 

Sobs, and sobs, and sobs. Shaking, heaving breaths. Hot, hot tears and snot and his hands shaking hands shaking where they grip his skin. 

He’s not really sure why. Tony Stark has been dead for awhile now. He’s so much more privileged than anyone else he’s grown up with, his poor neighbourhood in Queens. He’s got a full ride to a top university, opportunity once he gets out. Everything has been handed to him, and here he is, crying in the bathroom because someone died. 

When he gets out of the tub, the water is cold and the condensation has dribbled down the mirror. 

He stares at himself for a long time in that mirror, then takes one hand and smears it across himself. There’s not much condensation left, but he is still distorted for a moment. Eventually the image of himself clears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if anything is off with the portrayal of depression in this, tried as best as i could. (also just with the whole grieving concept lol)
> 
> strangely enough, im the only one in this generation without it and internet stuff only does so much. 
> 
> leave a comment telling me how I did?


	4. acceptance

  
  


“You're back,” Peter says flatly, and opens the door. He’s better, since last time they talked. Exorcised. 

“I’m back,” Rhodey echoes, and steps inside. 

They sit, like they normally do. Rhodey, at the too-small desk, Peter, on the bed. This time, Peter’s already high. He’s smoked enough weed that he’s actually feeling it, and Rhodey can probably tell, but he doesn't care. 

“You know how I was talking,” Rhodey says, “about Tony.”

Peter just nods. Closes his eyes, opens them again, a few eternal seconds later.

“He was like this, too,” he waves a hand at him, in this debauched, broken down form. “Before his parents died, but it was bad after. He took everything he could get his hands on, which was a lot. And he just...didn't care. He really didn't. His stomached got pumped maybe once a month, he OD’d more than that for a bit. I was the one that saved him and Obadiah was the one that hushed it up.”

“Here to send me to rehab?” Peter jokes, and all his current world is contained to the textured ceiling above him and the other single point of life at the desk. 

The other single point of life laughs a little. “No. That never worked for Tony either.”

“I'm not him,” Peter says, and turns his head to stare at him directly. 

There's silence. Rhodey nods, clears his though. “No,” he says, like he’s realising it. “You're not.”

* * *

Rehab is okay. It’s not _bad_.

Not good, either. 

The place they sent him — Rhodey, Pepper, May — is nice. Enough. It’s expensive, and seems like the kind of place you would go if you don't want anyone to know you do drugs. Or alcohol. Or sex. Or gambling. Or, or, or. There's a lot he hears about in group. 

One guy, who's the kind of rich, privileged kid that seems like the type that’ll get kicked out of university but still end up working a hedge fund somewhere, has a bit problem with coke.

Well, not according to him. “So yeah, I’d do a couple lines every so while, what's the big deal?” he exclaims, and wave his hands around. Peter just watches. People will do anything to cover their addiction, he’s noticed. 

"Thanks for your share," the lady leading the group says, "sit down."

They meet eyes across the circle, he snarls. "You want something?"

Peter shrugs. "Nothing."

"'Nothing." he snipes, a bad imatation of his voice. "You haven't told us nothing?" he contributes, and slouches further into his seat, as if the hard plastic will open and swallow him up. 

He shrugs, and stands up. “My name’s Peter. Parker. I'm from Queens. You know the type. Dead parents, poor neighbourhood. But… there's more. I got a scholarship to some fancy school in Manhattan, to boast their average. I'm smart. Like, smart enough to get an internship at Stark Industries,” he laughs. “And, uh, someone died. I was there. And he died. There was...was nothing I could do it stop it.” He looks down, blinks. “So, I, uh, started using. Just to do something. Just to stop feeling."

“How has been clean being?” the woman leading the group asks softly

Peter swallows. “Everything feels so bold. I can't believe it. I've been dull for so long.”

  
  


* * *

  
  


His roomie, a dark haired man who looks a lot older than he should, stays up all night and stares at the wall. Peter doesn't really know him, doesn't really want to. 

“Tony Stark,” he murmurs one day, and _looks_ at him. Peter hasn't been _look_ ed at in a while. Everyone sees him, but they don't look. 

“Yeah,” Peter says back, and turns over his pillow. “Tony Stark.”

“Sorry,” he says, and climbs into bed.

Peter doesn't answer, and turns out the light.

* * *

When he gets out, Rhodey picks him up. It's strange being in a car again. Stranger, being in the outside world again. Everything is bright. There are so many people. He can hear it all.

They don't say anything, for a minute, as Peter gets used to everything again. 

“You gonna stay clean?” Rhodey asks finally, and switches lanes. 

Peter watches a billboard go by. “Yeah,” he answers, because that's what adults like to hear, not because he is. He doesn't know. 

* * *

Tony Stark is dead. That's alright. It is. he’s died, and that's just a part of life. He ded doing what he was born to do, what he wanted to do. His story ended the same way he started, an American hero trying to fix something he didn't create. 

* * *

He’s coming off a bad high, throwing up into his dorm bathroom. He heaves of the last time, coughs wetly, tries to find a towel to wipe his mouth, can’t, then drags his mouth against his arm. 

He fishes around for the spiked pills he took. He finds the baggie in his pocket and empties it down the toilet.

He gets up, starts to wash his hands at the cold ceramic sink. He looks up, connects eyes with the mirror. This isn't him anymore. It’s just the Peter he created. The Peter he created was scared of everything. Of connecting with people, of realising Tony Stark is dead. 

Tony Stark _is_ dead. And that's okay. It really is. 

It’s not his fault, either. 

* * *

He doesn't need drugs anymore. He doesn't want them anymore. 

He starts to pulls out his supply. The weed taped to the bottom of the soap dispenser. Pills under the lip of the tub, the morphine in the shower. Half an hour later, he’s got a pile of narcotics at his feet. 

He puts them in a garbage bag and drops them off in the dumpster down the street. Hopefully the rats don't get into them. Oh god, that would be anarchy on the streets.

* * *

  
  


“Hi, Ned,” he whispers, and hopes that he says something back other than contempt.

“Hi, Peter,” Ned says, still loud and bright and big, like a balloon at a birthday party, with that essence of him but sad, quiet, at the same time. “Hi.”

Peter grins, so wide his face changes. “I love you Ned, I really fucking do.”

“I love you too, Peter.”

* * *

  
  


“Thank you, Rhodey.” he says, and hugs him. Rhodey’s hands hesitate for a moment, like they don't remember what to do, and then grips him, firm and hard and steady. 

“It’s okay, kid.”

“Thank you, Rhodey,” Peter repeats, and sobs into his jacket. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He’s not sure how many of those are to Rhodey, and how may are towards Mr. Stark.

He graduates, having finished his degrees in four years. Pepper calls with congratulations and an offer for a job at SI. It’s low-level, and she says he would have gotten it even if they had never met before. So, he takes it.

* * *

  
  


It’s okay. People don't know about Spider-Man, or how he knew Tony Stark, but they do know he was an intern and that Pepper got him the job. 

It's a bit of a step down from personally designing a suit and helping upgrade Iron-Man, he mostly gets coffee and take lunch orders, but occasionally he gets to witness a great idea in progress. 

The more time passes, the more he realises this isn't cut out for him. He loves designing, making things, but he hates the red tape, the time it takes to do anything. It’s too mediocre for him anyway, that terrific spark he gets when he’s got the tail of an idea and is pulling it down to earth is gone. 

So when the stranger at his usual coffee place asks, “You want a job, kid?” he decides to indulge it by answering. 

“I have a job.”

“Peter Parker does,” he replies. 

Peter drinks his ice-coffee. He thinks of Tony Stark, and moving on, and the career options for Spider-Man. “Yeah. I kind of do.”

So, that's how he becomes this new, new him. Peter Parker, ex-mentee to Tony Stark, SHIELD agent, recovering drug addict, Ph.D. 

He likes himself a lot better now. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
